


sinking fish and starlight

by idaate



Series: sinking birds and starlight [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, alternative universe, dw no one dies, the other two are only briefly mentioned but yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: The bike is old and dented though, and the blond boy looks at it skeptically. “You sure this pile of garbage works?”Minami lets out an offended noise. “Of course it works!” He scoffs. “Do I look like the type of guy who would offer bike rides to people with bikes that don’t work?”The boy takes a look at his scraped knees and torn shorts and nods.





	

He sees the blond boy for the first time when he’s standing on a bridge, wind whipping his hair around and for a moment Minami can’t do much else but be a little jealous of how freely the tears are flowing down the boy’s face. 

Then the fact that he’s other side of the railing kicks in and just as he’s stepping with a single foot off the edge, Minami’s tripping and falling and scraping his knees as he’s jumping off his bike. 

He almost cries with relief when he feels cloth wrapped around his knuckles, because he’s just in time.

The boy veers away from his touch, obviously, because he doesn’t  _ want  _ to be stopped by some foreign fingertips grabbing at his clothing and pulling him away from the edge. 

He breaks the sound of silence with his cries of ‘stop!’ and ‘let me the  _ fuck  _ go!’ and that makes Minami sad, all too sad for him to be too triumphant and hero-like about saving the boy’s life.

But in the end, amid tears and screams and scratching skin, he gives in, his too-skinny body pressed against Minami’s.

It’s a little ironic cause he’s short for his age, so the boy has to stoop a little to rest his head on Minami’s shoulder as snot and tears collect on his shirt. It stops soon, though.

It’s too dark to distinctly see the boy’s face, but he offers him a ride on his bike (for lack of a better option at the moment, frankly). The boy scowls and mutters something about how ‘it isn’t possible to fit two people on a single bicycle, fuckin’ idiot’ but he’s too tired to say much.

The bike is old and dented though, and he looks at it skeptically. “You sure this pile of garbage works?”

Minami lets out an offended noise. “Of course it works!” He scoffs. “Do I look like the type of guy who would offer bike rides to people with bikes that don’t work?”

The boy takes a look at his scraped knees and torn shorts and nods.

His phone vibrates but he’s too busy showing the boy how to sit and balance on the handlebars to check the 97 text messages (make that 98) from his sister asking him why he isn’t home yet.

He turns it on silent after a while, though, because he doesn’t want to be distracted by the way the boy laughs when they’re zooming around the city with hair whipping in his eyes.

 

(his hair is a beautiful yellow color, blond and gorgeous and soft and  _ wonderful _ )

 

His latest vehicle of transportation is a motorcycle, stolen when he found it parked it next to a library two or three cities ago. No one’s looking for it, though, and the boy hasn’t asked where he got it so that’s fine.

It’s looks easy in the movies when the now-saved-damsel-in-distress clutches her saviors waist and they’re running away from some evil organization or other, city lights reflecting off their helmets and the music swells. But that doesn’t work with them, because the boy’s arms get in the way whenever they want to turn and break and, honestly,  _ Minami  _ feels like the damsel here with the kind of mouth the boy has.

In the end they opt to have him drive instead (Minami didn’t know that the boy had a motorcycle himself) because he can clutch onto the back of the boy’s shirt with tiny fists and still not fall.

“Where’re you going?” He asks at one point, after they’ve been driving for half an hour.

He shrugs. “Fuck if I know.”

 

(he says his name is Yuri, and it sounds like a someone’s too-cold tea when they forgot to take it in after their tea party. delicious.) 

 

“What’s with you and making up shitty tall tales?”

The question comes suddenly when they’re sitting on a bench at some amusement park that they stumbled upon and they’re eating cotton candy, so he starts a little bit.

“I don’t lie.”

Yuri laughs outright. (because that was a lie too)

He hesitates, and then, “How can you tell?”

“Your eyes are really bad at lying.”

He closes his eyes and faces Yuri. “Okay, what about now?”

He snorts and pinches his nose, in which as a response he flings his cotton candy and gets it all over the boy’s clothing, though it was already torn and dirtied by now.

He buys Yuri a shirt from one of the stalls that’s three times his size and is even longer than his shorts, but he pulls out the string from one of his shoelaces and ties it around his waist and it’s perfect. 

 

(they don’t talk about it again, much to his relief)

 

He picks up his phone at some point, looking at the now 211 messages that have piled up on each other. He tries reading a few of them, but after the first few the words start to blur together and he gives up and replies ‘i’m on my way home.’ before re-pocketing the phone.

He turns to Yuri and asks him where he wants Minami to drop him off, but he shakes his head, uncharacteristically silent.

Another moment of hesitation, and then, “Do you want to go somewhere else, and then you can hang at my place?”

Yuri shrugs nonchalantly, but Minami spots the smile on his lips.

 

(he hopes that he remembered to clean up his room because he doesn’t want Yuri to see the piles of laundry and half-eaten dinners)

 

“He’s not staying here.”

He tries to reason with his sister as they stand outside his apartment at 3:42 am, their forms shivering because they decided to jump and splash around a public lake and chase birds until they couldn’t feel their feet anymore. 

“But he’s-”

“No buts.” And he wish that out of all the things that his sister could’ve inherited from their parents, it was their compassion. But no, she had to have their drive, their stubbornness instead. What a bother. 

Yuri dips his head and makes a snide comment about ‘not needing any of their fuckin’ help’ before he starts to step away from the door and suddenly Minami remembers how too few hours beforehand he was stepping off a bridge, and he grabs the boy’s wrist.

“If he goes,” he says pointedly at his sister, “I’m going to go with him. Have luck paying the next rent.”

His sister gives in.

 

(at one point Yuri asks about the rest of their family, but Minami’s learned to change the topic a lot and he reckons that he’s probably an expert at this point)

 

One day Yuri’s listening to the radio with him when suddenly the missing person report comes in, and apparently it’s a big deal because it’s the kid of a great big someone or other who probably has too much money on their hands.

The announcer lists off the name, and it’s Yuri’s.

Minami smiles, cracks a joke, and turns the radio off.

Yuri isn’t looking towards him, and Minami wonders if he even heard.

 

(one day his sister asks him again if they should’ve taken Yuri in, because they’re drawing attention to themselves but he laughs and tells her that it’s fine)

 

One day while they’re making dinner together Yuri cuts his finger and swears a little bit, dropping the knife and doubling over himself as he sticks it in his mouth, trying to stem the flow of blood.

Minami looks over and let’s out a little gasp, and in an instant he’s cradling Yuri finger in his hands. He’s suddenly too aware of how  _ delicate  _ Yuri’s hands are, and as if on cue, Yuri pulls his hand away, blushing and scowling.

There’s an awkward pause, and then Minami breaks the silence. “Are you alright?”

“‘m fine. You don’t need to worry.” Yuri mutters, but Minami can’t get the boy’s flushed face out of his mind as he takes over chopping the vegetables.

 

(sometimes Minami closes his eyes and tries to remember and remember exactly how he felt back then, but it slips from the recesses of his mind and he’s left with a blank slate)

 

It’s after a couple weeks that he asks if Yuri goes to school or has a job, but he simply shrugs and states that he has neither (anymore). So, with some string pulling and hurried resume making, Yuri manages to land a shift at the 24/7 gas station that he works at himself.

They don’t ask too many questions there, he says, and Yuri believes him wholeheartedly.

They only have a single shift together, and that’s during the hours between one and five am on the weekdays so practically no one is there but them.

It gives them time to talk, as if they haven’t have enough already. 

 

(it kind of scares him how easily Yuri is able to trust him now, without a doubt in his mind)

 

At one point, he asks Yuri if he wants to return to his family, but he shakes his head. “I’m 17, I’m not some little kid they can keep coddled up anymore.” Yuri says indignantly, and Minami realizes it’s the first time Yuri’s even mentioned his age.

 

(he’s only two years older than Yuri, which makes him happy)

 

It’s eight am on Saturday when he hears a knocking at his door. He doesn’t think much of how his appearance is a complete mess until he opens the door and there’s a policeman staring at him.

He doesn’t exactly comprehend the words they’re saying until they hold up a picture of Yuri and his whole world starts to tilt a little.

They ask him if he’s seen the boy and he lies and says that no, he hasn’t, and they cluck their tongues and apologize for waking him up.

He asks why they’re asking around, and they say that they have said that they’ve gotten an anonymous tip about seeing a boy in this hotel.

Minami asks who the boy is, and they say that he’s the daughter of some great man that he’s never heard of and first in line to inherit a huge company of something or other (all the way back in  _ Russia) _ . At this, they add that there’s an award that contains quite a few zeroes on it for accurate information pertaining to the boy.

He taps his chin, and, after some hesitation, he comments on how he saw a young man who looks like him jump off a bridge a couple weeks back.

Their eyes widen and they bow frantically before leaving, and he closes the door a little bit guiltily.

 

(he hopes that he made the right choice)

 

It’s a couple days after that Minami packs up the bags and announces that they’re leaving and moving to the next city over. 

His sister sputters indignantly and asks how she’s going to get to school, but he rubs the space in between his eyes as he promises that he’ll pay for her to ride the subway every morning so she won’t be late.

She puffs out her cheeks and mutters something under her breath, but doesn’t comment on much else.

Yuri, on the other hand, is skeptical from the start and corners him, asking him what caused this sudden and seemingly random change of scenery. 

He laughs out loud. “I don’t like the guy next door. He plays his music too loud and drinks way too much alcohol.”

Yuri scowls and simply states that what he was saying was “bullshit.”

Minami watches Yuri’s retreating back and  _ really  _ hopes that he didn’t make the wrong decision.

 

(they don’t actually have a guy like that next door, in fact there’s a nice old woman who made cookies from them when he and his sister first moved in, but Yuri’s only been here for a month and that lady hasn’t made herself apparent, has she)

 

The place that he chooses is actually not far away from the bridge that he first met Yuri at, and Minami knows that he’s aware of that fact just as much as Minami himself is. They can ride the train to their job at the gas station, though, so they don’t have to quit it which is a big relief.

They don’t talk about why they moved anymore, but the guilt gnaws away at him still and he wonders once again if he made the right choice.

 

(sometimes Minami can hear Yuri waking up at night with nightmare names on his lips, and it scares him)

 

One night, when he can’t sleep, Minami searches up the name ‘ _ Yuri Plisetsky’  _ to see exactly what’s going on with the boy but falls asleep on the keyboard an hour or two into his research, fatigue from a stressful day winning out in the end.

“Are  _ you  _ gonna fucking sell me out, too? I’m! I’m not surprised, actually! I--”

And that’s how he wakes up, with Yuri yelling at him indignantly in his  _ face  _ and it only takes a second of looking at a pixelated screen with a much younger Yuri looking up at him that makes the pieces in his head fit perfectly.

“N-no.” Minami stutters, sitting up with a keyboard’s imprint on his cheek. “I...I was just curious--”

“So! It didn’t even  _ occur  _ to you to ask me yourself? About why I’d leave someplace like  _ that  _ when I was loaded to the  _ brim?! _ Huh!” Yuri’s sweating now, pulling his hand down his face and glancing frantically around the room. “How much is ol’ Pops offering? Can you count how many  _ zeroes  _ there are? Or is you shitty traitor ass able to comprehend numbers as much as it can comprehend trust? Huh?”

Minami’s at a loss for words, and does nothing but duck his head in shame.

“I...I wasn’t going to sell you out. I... _ promise… _ ”

“Oh, I’ve been promised a  _ ton  _ of shit.” Yuri’s voice is  _ ice.  _ “You’re lucky that all I’ve got right now are the clothes on my back and that I’m in your debt, ‘cause otherwise I’d be leaving this place  _ tonight. _ ”

 

(sometimes, after the incident, he goes outside to find that the motorcycle is missing at night along with Yuri, but he returns in only an hour so it’s fine)

 

There’s one point when Yuri doesn’t return by morning, let alone an hour, and he’s pacing the floor because of  _ course  _ he’s worried.

His sister simply sits on the sofa, a book that she’s supposed to be reading resting on her chest as she watches him pace. Summer’s just beginning but it’s already hell on earth, and the conditioning decided to sputter and die out so there goes their only way of surviving the heat. It’s too hot to move (or do anything, really) but his mind is on other things.

“Why don’t you just go after Yuri?”

He looks up and his sister is staring at him through half lidded eyelashes. “What?”

“You heard what I said. Go after him. Chase your prince. Find him.” She snaps her fingers lazily before letting them fall back down on the cushions. “Like that.”

He runs a hand through mousey brown locks. “It’s not that simple-”

“Sure it is. You’re just overthinking it.” She states, turning her head. “I doubt that he’d run away without another word after she’s been with us all these months.” And then, a little more directly, “I doubt he’d run away from  _ you  _ after all these months. Yuri’s not that type of person. No matter what happened between the two of you.”

He pulls at the roots of his hair in frustration and sighs. “I’m not sure anymore.”

His sister scoffs.

There’s a couple minutes of pauses and pulling of faces, before he’s grabbing the keys to the bicycle lock and dashing outside.

 

(Minami would say that he had have no idea of where to find Yuri, but that would be a lie)

 

He falls twice on the way there on his bicycle, scraping his knees again and again until they were red and bleeding and stung in the wind. If it had been nearing night it might’ve seemed like some heroic horse (bicycle) ride on the prince’s way to save the maiden in distress, but it’s in the middle of the day with busy traffic and he falls too many times for it to be noble or heroic and it was Minami who needs saving, not Yuri.

He’s at the bridge, of course, and he falls head over heels as he attempts to get off the bike. But knowing his luck, his shoelaces get tangled in the pedals and he has to tug to get them out.

Yuri’s on the right side of the railing this time and laughs contemptuously at his attempts, making it clear that he wasn’t intent on helping Minami in any way, shape, or form.

He’s embarrassed and flustered and tries to apologize too many times without actually getting to the end of the apology.

“You know, I heard the policemen that time.”

“Oh.” Minami can’t think of much else to say.

Yuri turns away and they’re looking over at the crashing river below, which might’ve been scenic had it been night. But it’s daytime, and the sun is shining down and trash and other such rubble is exposed.

It’s kind of disgusting, actually, but Minami doesn’t care.

“Y’know, when I was. There. When I was about to jump,” Yuri’s biting his lip and looks away. “I wanted to die, but, like, not really.”

“That...doesn’t make sense.” Minami gulps.

“No, I mean, I did want to die, I just-” Yuri breathes a sigh of frustration through his teeth. “I kind of wanted to die for just a little while, like a week or so, and then come back and see everyone again and it’d be like the ultimate ‘psyche’, y’know?”

“Not really.”

Yuri laughs. “Yeah, some fuckin’ idiot like you wouldn’t get it.” He pulls a phone out of his pocket that Minami didn’t know he had and turns it on, revealing the numerous cracks tracing its screen. Minami winces a little bit just looking at it. “I’m not going back to Pops.” He states firmly. “Not now, not ever. Or, not at least I’m, like, 25, you know? Or when he’s on his deathbed and dying. Anyway.

“I’ve got some friends, back there, though. Or, singular ‘friend’, I should say. I’m sure you’ve heard of Victor Nikiforov? Or maybe not. You’re not the kind of person to be into foreign shit.” Yuri’s laughing a little bit, and Minami wonders if those are tears gathering in his eyes. “Point is, I’m a long way from home, and I’m thinking of going back to Russia. Live with Victor and his shitty boyfriend, this  _ other  _ guy named Yuuri.” He snorts. “And I kinda wanna take my own. Uh.” He clears his throat and pulls at the neck of his shirt. “My own...uh... _ significant person.  _ Cause, like, for the past - what, almost year now? W-we’ve hung out and stuff, lived together, and, like, I don’t know how you feel about this whole fucked up ordeal but--”

And then Minami’s grabbing Yuri by the neck of his shirt and pulling him down just a little and all they can see in their vision are explosions of yellow and gold.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ha ha i love this ship i hope they meet in canon
> 
> i really need to lower the edge level on my writing because it's becoming a Little Bit Ridiculous 
> 
> this is probably ooc but yknow. I Try.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are greatly appreciated please leave them so your Lucky Suffering Author Can Feel Validated thank y


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